Close friendship with Walker's parents has helped Roach deal with guilt

The trial is over. The one-year anniversary has passed. So, too, has the day that would have been Todd Walker's 22nd birthday.

For Elizabeth Roach, the University of Colorado student who was with Walker when he was shot and killed on University Hill by Kevin McGregor, Walker's death is both more real and less real with the passage of time.

"Weirder" is the word Roach uses when asked to describe her life in the months since her testimony helped convict McGregor of first-degree murder and send him to prison for the rest of his life.

For months after the 2011 shooting, she put all of her mental and emotional energy toward the upcoming trial. With the trial behind her, there wasn't anything else she could do for Walker.

Todd Walker

"Once that verdict was read, it was like now it's real," Roach said in an interview with the Daily Camera this week.

McGregor was found guilty of murder in early February.

Despite his death, Walker remains the center of a close-knit group of friends, several of whom share his dry, sarcastic sense of humor.

"Every now and then, I'll wake up or have thoughts that I can't believe it's been a year already," she said. "It just feels like he's at school, which is the scary part."

Walker, a native of the mountain town of Edwards and a University of New Hampshire football player, was visiting friends in Boulder during his spring break last year when he was killed.

Walker, 20, was walking Roach home early on the morning of March 18 when McGregor, now 23, of Longmont, approached the pair, pointed a gun at Roach and demanded money, according to Roach's testimony at trial.

When she called him a joke and pulled down the bandanna over his face, McGregor fired a shot in the air, Roach said. She turned to leave, but Walker stayed and told McGregor to leave her alone. The two men pushed each other; then McGregor shot Walker, who was killed almost instantly.

Boulder County District Attorney Stan Garnett praised Roach's testimony as key to convicting McGregor, and his office gave her the Commitment to Justice Award last month at a ceremony recognizing crime victims.

"She saw what she saw, and she was committed to tell it truthfully and completely," he said. "And she had a fierce commitment to justice for Todd. She was going to see this through."

Roach said the district attorney's office became her second home in the months between the murder and the trial. Garnett's personality is similar to her father's, Roach said, and like her father, he "trusted that I would be OK."

Roach said she's always been independent and always stood up for herself -- traits she got from both her parents -- but she's struggled with feelings of guilt about her actions that night.

"If he hadn't walked me home, this wouldn't have happened," she said. "If I hadn't opened my mouth, this wouldn't have happened. If we hadn't gone down that road, it wouldn't have happened. If I wasn't so stubborn, it wouldn't have happened. He didn't do anything wrong."

Roach said her temper, for better or worse, has not abated.

"I'm pretty hot-headed to begin with, which is why everything went down the way it did, but instead of me calming down, it just got worse, which is not necessarily a good thing," she said.

She sometimes snaps at people when she doesn't mean to. Friends have suggested yoga, but she's found that kickboxing provides more relief.

Elizabeth Roach, close friend of Todd Walker, talked with the Daily Camera on May 9, 2012, about her life after Kevin McGregor's trial.
(
MARK LEFFINGWELL
)

Todd Walker's parents, Mark and Pam Walker, have embraced Roach. Their acceptance has helped her immensely, she said.

"I will always feel guilty about it, but his parents have been awesome," Roach said. "They've never made me feel like that."

She visits them regularly and called Mark Walker on Father's Day. They have become like her second parents, she said.

"The fact that Todd's parents have been there for me and that they allow me to be there for them, it's like I have another set of parents," she said. "Because his parents are so awesome and they are the way they are is the reason I can laugh the way I used to and still be more or less the same person.

"They are the most amazing people I have ever met in my entire life, and without them, I couldn't have done this."

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